Re: [gentoo-user] Advice for 64-bit n00b?

[Stroller <stroller@stellar.eclipse.co.uk>]

On 3 Mar 2010, at 15:29, Stroller wrote:
> ...
> I have started following the Gentoo Linux AMD64 Handbook, because  
> the Quick Install Guide is described as "x86". Having untarred the  
> stage I am surprised to find a lib32 directory. I thought  
> compatibility with 32-bit binaries was optional. Or am I  
> misunderstanding? This is going to be a headless server & I can't  
> think that it'll need any binary packages - possibly the management  
> utility for the RAID controller will be distributed as a binary, I'm  
> not sure yet (the hardware RAID key was missing when I got this  
> machine ☹)


Further to Alan's reply, I've proceeded a little further.

I'm onto section 2.3: Changing profiles, where it says:
   "If you want to have a pure 64-bit environment, with no 32-bit  
applications or libraries, you should use a non-multilib profile."

See my comments in the quoted above. It shouldn't be too expensive to  
enable the RAID in this machine (which is on the mainboard, but  
requires a little hardware PCB "key" to be fitted). That's a Dell  
PERC4, which AFAICT is a rebadged LSI megaraid.

This post [1] http://tinyurl.com/3dzcl9 referrs to the management  
utility thus: "MegaCLI comes as a RPM containing only a single  
statically linked 32-bit Linux binary", however `eix mega` suggests  
there may be alternatives, such as `megactl` [2]

My immediate thought when reading the handbook was that it's "best"  
and "cleanest" and "more right" to only have 64-bit libraries on a 64- 
bit system, but this need for the RAID management utility is making me  
wonder if that would be cutting off my nose to spite my face.

Thoughts?

Stroller.




[1] http://www.kaltenbrunner.cc/blog/index.php?/archives/4-LSIlogic-MegaRAID-SAS-and-the-self-explaining-CLI.html

[2] http://sourceforge.net/projects/megactl/